Once I Had a Secret Love
by Kellifer Monkey
Summary: Early season three. Kim , Jack and Chase musing on their relationships with one another. Can this situation continue on the third day without someone's broken heart? SPOILERS! COMPLETE!
1. Dear Diary

How do I do this? It means so much to me… he means so much to me. How do I make him understand what this means? After all that has happened I only want what they had. I want to have something like they had years ago, before Nina… before Kate.   
  
I remember when they were together and he couldn't take his eyes off her; they would just sit in the garden together or he'd try to cook while she guided him through the simplest recipe without letting him know he was a hopeless chef. The way they just worked as one amazed me, and I remember from when I was just a little girl that, that was what I wanted more than anything. I want that belonging to someone, without ever being a possession… I found that. Now how do I make Dad understand that he can't hide me away forever? I'm not his little girl anymore.   
  
Telling him that would break his heart. I know I'm all he lives for, I know that it's just me that makes him get up every morning and it's been that way for so long. I never liked Kate. I never liked the way they just fell in with one another. I tried to get on with her, for his sake… eventually I tried just so that he would have something else. I know it's selfish but sometimes the burden just got too much for me.   
  
None of my relationships worked out… he put a stop to every one of them and I forgave him for taking my happiness. I'd forgive him almost everything, because now I know how hard it is being Jack Bauer. I've seen first hand what he goes through.  
  
There comes a time, however, when I can't just let him go on doing it and claiming it's for me. Did he go away for two years for my sake? No he left because things were too hard and I get that… I really do. God knows it was hard for me too. But while he was away someone else was there for me. Someone else took care of me and wiped away the tears and he is a good man. Someone even Dad would trust; someone he does trust… with his life.  
  
Still he won't be happy, he won't like it when I tell him how serious it all got while he was busy with other things. If I tell him that he'll feel worse. I can't live my life for him… I can't keep living a miserable life just so that he doesn't feel left out. He chooses to keep a distance from people. He thinks it's just better that way… not for me.  
  
Loneliness isn't better for me and if he would just get off his guilt trip maybe he'd realise its no good for him either. He didn't kill her… he didn't put me in danger. He just did his job and some vengeful lowlife thought he could use us all for his own ends. I don't blame him and no matter how many times I say it, he never listens. I just want to say,  
  
"Dad, you want to keep me safe and be there for me but you never hear me. You never listen to what I say and take it to your heart, where it belongs. I love you Dad but I'm a woman now and you can't hold my hand anymore."  
  
I want his blessing… I know I'm kidding myself. I'm his world and I'm asking him to hand me over to someone else.   
  
How do I tell him I love Chase? How can I make him remember what that means without tearing him apart?   
  
Why is nothing in my life simple? It's like someone is deliberately putting me in situations that don't even happen in the movies. If they do happen then they don't show this… they don't show the tears and the turmoil… they don't show you trying to stop your own father blowing his brains out on the kitchen table… they don't show the fact that a teenager has all the pressure of that on her shoulders and… I never complained.  
  
I love my Dad. I love Chase… but nothing is ever that easy. 


	2. J Bauer Doc05personal Confidential!

I just found something I really wish I hadn't have discovered at all. I guess it's not exactly the end of the world but… it sure as hell feels like it right now. I don't really know how to feel to be honest. Let down, rejected, lonely… ridiculous, selfish and jealous.  
  
How can I be jealous with my daughter? I feel like I'm going crazy. Everyday I get up, I get showered and dressed and drink half a pot of coffee and I drive us both to work. It's the same as before… before Teri died… but this time I'm not taking Kim to school, but to the very place her mother was murdered. We prefer to call it the office.   
  
To this day I can't walk down that corridor, and I feel such a fool. I send people down there to collect things for me… I've lost count of the times I've argued with Chloe about who has more to do and why I'm so much busier than her to go. I just can't step into that room without it all coming back. It still feels like yesterday. Each morning I get up and just for a moment I turn over in bed to kiss my wife and I feel the chill of the space beside me… and I know she's gone… gone for ever. I'll never get to kiss her again. Our daughter will never get to share all those special moments with her… She'll never get to show her that prom dress, never have her smiling at her graduation, and never have the embarrassment of introducing her first serious boyfriend, and…  
  
I think I'm keeping her safe… after all that happened that day; I kid myself that having her near me makes it all okay. It isn't all okay and it never will be again, now. Not now that I'm extraneous in the situation. What do I have to get up for now?   
  
Hiding in work has turned me into a junkie, and a pretty nasty person at that. I'm less patient with my daughter now and I don't have the time for her that I had before… I feel sick half the time and when I'm high the worries and fears come out of the woodwork even more than before; except those few fortunate moments when I've had the good stuff and I can pretend for just a little while that none of the events of the last three years happened at all. Those times when I remember what I should be to my family are few and far between. I'm not her father anymore. I'm a shell containing similar memories to those that she holds, and it keeps us close enough to care for each other; but it doesn't make me a good father. Beating up dealers for my next fix doesn't make me a decent man either.  
  
Why do I think she should want to be near me all the time? I've let her down so much in the past. Being around or not, doesn't make any difference… I've never really given as much as I could to my family. Work has always taken too much of my time… and now I'm trying to make Kim be the same.  
  
Worse than that… it's already done. I made her think of me as some hero and now she actually admires me for what a loser I've become. She sees her father with a rosy glow and I can't bear to take the chance of telling her what I really am, in case she leaves me too.  
  
God, maybe her being with Chase would be a good thing. At least he's honest. He couldn't really let her down anymore than I have, after all. He's a good kid, I trust him with my life and my secret. Why am I so bothered by all this? She is bound to grow up and get married… it's those things that I wanted for her… but with someone like me?  
  
What could Chase do, that would be so bad? It was my fault Kim lost her Mom, the only thing Chase could do that would hurt her and destroy her life the way I have done, would be to off me…   
  
Hell, why am I thinking about this so much?   
  
No, Kim needs a better life than I can give her. She is twenty-one now, she's not my little girl anymore. I can't tell her how to live her life and I can't make her follow my wishes out of pity. I didn't realise how much I had put upon her over that first year after Teri died. Worse still, I didn't realise that my leaving for work after that, had caused her so much pain.  
  
If I feel bad about this… this relationship she has… it's my own fault. I'll act surprised when she tells me. I'll hide my feelings until I can get a clear picture of how she feels… how he feels. Hell I hope he's serious about her. If he doesn't feel the same…  
  
Shit, I'm going round in circles. I've been doing it for a long time. Talking of time… I don't think I can stave this one off any longer. I'm sweating buckets and my arm is cramping up just writing this… it's been almost three days and I know I'm getting the worst of it. Can I really keep this up? People are noticing things… they'd be noticing a lot more if I didn't have my own bathroom in my office. I've been sick four times in the last two hours.   
  
I've been wary of taking too much… it's hard, when you need something so desperately, to moderate yourself and control how you feel… what I really need isn't drugs… it's my wife. Each minute ticks by like hours and I know that it's putting a strain on my already weak heart. I don't know what to do anymore.  
  
Tony thinks I make snap decisions because that's just 'Bauer'. I make them because I can't think too far ahead these days. Now I have the benefit of time for a change. I can figure out how I feel about this stuff before Kim comes to me with her news. When will that be I wonder… when will my little girl pluck up the courage to be a woman?   
  
It might be a while yet… I have time for one more fix… I have time to relax a little. Just once more… I'll let myself hide in the haze once more and then I'll stop.  
  
Just a few more minutes… just a little quiet before the storm… I need to think, I need to…   
  
"Oh Teri, thank God you're here… just stay with me a while. I don't want to say goodbye yet, honey… please just stay till I fall asleep… it's been so long… its all so hard… just hold me Teri, just hold me and make it all go away… please?" 


	3. partner file, personal C Edmunds

This really isn't the right time for this; I know. The whole of LA could be at danger from a bioterrorist virus and here I am worrying about my love life. Except its not just my love life is it?  
  
My career is in the balance here, not that it really seems important to Kim. After all she's been through she needs to just have a little happiness in her life. I do care for her… I do… but it's a lot to take on and it's hard to balance my job with my relationship, especially when it has to be kept secret.  
  
It does have to be kept secret too. She's about to go in there and tell him; today of all days, and I know he's not going to like it one bit. You see I do understand how he feels; at the very least I'd have to put Kim's feelings aside whenever anything like this came up. I took this position knowing that and I am perfectly prepared to do my duty.  
  
Strange; I know he is going to go nuts on me when she tells him what's been going on behind his back for the last three months; and yet my loyalty still lies more with Jack than it does with his daughter. I told him earlier that I'd take a bullet for him and I would; because that's what I'm here to do. That's what being a partner is all about.  
  
Would I do that for Kim? I know the opportunity is unlikely to arise; since the bombing, CTU headquarters is as secure as Fort Knox. Ironically Jack blowing the place up made him all too aware of the limitations of the place and, well… the likelihood of someone getting in this place undercover… I have more chance of him giving his blessing!  
  
Do I love her?   
  
That's what he'll ask me, if he comes round to the idea. Do I love his daughter enough to give her the kind of protection and loyalty that he gives her? Would I risk my life to protect her if I had suffered the way he did, the day he lost his wife?   
  
The answer is, I just don't know. She's a really great girl and I care for her. She is such a kind hearted girl… even if she is still a little naïve. Do I love her? I loved Jennie, before she walked out on me for that loser Fredrick. I needed Kim to take away my loss too.  
  
Heck, I don't know. Love is such a big deal and it's only been a few months.   
  
He doesn't seem too bothered. Maybe she wussed out and didn't say anything after all. Oh hell, what was that look for? She takes all this in her stride, I know I shouldn't think it but her job is so easy having Jack here. Not everyone likes him; a lot of people over in Tony's department don't even like talking to him. He doesn't go by the book and I guess those who lost friends in the bombing… well its difficult not to find some fault with the guy.  
  
If they only knew, what I do? If Kim only knew, what her father… no I shouldn't be thinking like this. It's cruel and… she just wants to be happy… How happy would she be, knowing that those last few breakthrough moments, talking to her Dad about Teri, were just because he was high as a kite?  
  
If I really loved her, I wouldn't keep that a secret would I? I'd put her feelings first… she only wants to help him… Christ she's been his nursemaid for the last three years… anytime he's home that is. Now she takes that on, in the out of office time and I'm stuck holding him together all day! If I had any sense I'd report him for using and maybe even get his job!   
  
Yeah, as if that would happen? Jack Bauer could spit in Almeida's Cub's mug every morning, hell he could probably sleep with the guy's wife and still no one would boot him out of this place.  
  
Jack Bauer is a national hero; he calls the president and could get put through quicker than his kids do; and I'm his partner. I'm the only man to ever have worked alongside Bauer as an equal… well almost.  
  
I'd have to be an idiot to give that up for a roll in the hay with his daughter. I have to be a fool to have got so caught up with her in the first place. She's a great girl; real good fun to be with…  
  
I've worked for this position for years… this is more than a job; it's my dream and here I am playing with the big boys. If she's told him, I see it going one of two ways. He'll go nuts and get me fired… or he'll make me end it with her and keep the hell away from her at all times.  
  
I know I stuffed up on the Corliss Operation last week… he covered my back admirably. He could get me kicked out of CTU very easily. But I have something on him too. Something no one else knows about. If he threatened to have me sent back to Division…  
  
The 'powers that be' here; they would understand it was part of his job; a misfortunate circumstance in need of assistance to clear things up the 'right' way. Though what would Kim think?  
  
Hearing her talk about the joy she felt when he actually opened up to her… shit, Jack Bauer actually cried! She wouldn't like to believe it was just because he was high on heroin.  
  
I don't want to have to do this… I don't want to turn on him like that and I really don't want to make things worse for her… Why didn't she just keep her mouth shut? Silly girl, she really doesn't understand this place at all.  
  
"I told him." She says, almost smiling.  
  
"What did he say?" I reply, hiding the emotions I've just been pouring out into a locked, protected file that even Chloe couldn't break.  
  
"Nothing."  
  
Oh shit, I am in trouble. 


End file.
